A Deadly Clash at Donkey Island

'Black on Ammo'

"Red 6, move . . . on line!" Young shouted over the radio to Nagelmeyer, using an expletive.

A 16-year Army veteran, Young knew the situation was dire. "We had to kill as many of these guys as we could before they overwhelmed us," said Young, 35, of Oklahoma City. He, Stark and Nagelmeyer backed up their Humvees 100 yards, taking cover behind a low dirt ridge. Then they lined up three abreast facing the semitrucks, guns blazing.

"Bullets were pinging off the windshield, the tires, the side," said Young's driver, Spec. Jason Willette, 33, of Honolulu. The insurgents' marksmanship was extremely accurate, aided by the moonlight, which diminished the advantage of the U.S. troops' night-vision goggles.

Young's gunner, Sgt. William Fellows, had nearly exhausted the 1,800 rounds he carried for his M240 machine gun. So the 24-year-old from Springfield, Mo., grabbed a Vietnam-era M-14 rifle and fired off five magazines. With only 100 rounds left, he was minutes from running out, he recalled: "We all basically went black on ammo."

At a mud-brick outpost a few miles southwest of the battle, a scout platoon set off in seven Humvees loaded with machine gun rounds. They arrived about 11 p.m., just in time to resupply Stark's patrol, and together the soldiers advanced toward the trucks.

"Spray it down!" ordered Capt. Jimm Spannagel, the scout platoon's leader. The trucks caught fire, munitions inside shooting off like fireworks, then exploded in gigantic red balls. Meanwhile, the insurgents, who outnumbered the Americans throughout the battle, were repositioning. Some swam across the canal to set up machine gun nests midstream on a small piece of land known as Donkey Island. Others dug in on the canal's beaches or behind its four-foot-high banks.

'Can You Walk?'

Capt. Ian Lauer, commander of the 1-77's Charlie Company, sped to the scene from the U.S. base in Ramadi and instructed his men to "assault to the south" along the canal.

As tank gunner Sgt. Vicente Nicola, 28, of Brentwood, N.Y., walked south along the beach with two other soldiers, he recalled, he noticed something in the moonlight that perplexed him: a pool of blood with no body at the end of it.

They passed a burned-out car. A bigger spot of blood. Still no body. Then suddenly, white muzzle flashes and gunshots. The insurgents -- apparently wounded but lying in wait -- had opened fire from behind a dirt berm 25 yards ahead.

On Nicola's right, Spec. Brian Taylor went down instantly. "Contact!" Nicola yelled, as he and Sgt. Mike Ayrlen fell to their knees and fired back. Nicola turned to check on Taylor, who had been shot in the leg and arm. Just then, he heard a loud bang, felt his neck grow cold and realized that he, too, had been hit, in the head.

Under escalating fire, Nicola dragged Taylor back to a small dip in the beach. The two soldiers lay gazing at the tracer rounds filling the sky, with Nicola half covering Taylor, 23, of Detroit. "You're gonna be all right," Nicola said softly.

Dizzy, Nicola then stumbled and crawled to the nearest Humvee, calling out, "Friendly!"